The Last Single Girl

This one's for you, Malik.

I’ve never fantasized about my wedding day but if I had to envision what it would be like, I see waves. The ocean is blue, intense and frothing at the mouth, flying in uncontrolled rage onto perfect coral that’s white, peach and burning hot from laying under the sun all summer’s day. The wind blows my hair in all directions so strands stick to my lip gloss and the combination of heat and tumultuous wind are a recipe for sunburn but I’m layered in SPF 50 and anyway, that’s the last thing on my mind as I look out at an ocean with no end in sight, so high up we can see the curvature of earth. He picks me up and swings me round in an orbit. We’re eloping.

The sand is so warm I could sleep on it. I want him to bury me in it. I want to die here, I think. I also want us to go diving. We eat lobster by the sea; someone is playing a guitar nearby but we can’t see them; in fact, we can’t see anyone. A crab scuttles by as he sees us eating his crustacean cousin. So sorry, bro. Exotic fruits grow in abundance here. I drink fresh pressed watermelon juice and feed him chunks of chopped mangoes and his nose screws up as he chews because to him, everything is sour. I laugh at his dramatics; it’s only mango I say, and his eyes squint in disagreement but he smiles back because he knows he’s being ridiculous and he knows I love him for it.

We feed each other a little cake but he’s not really a cake fan (he’s an absolute psychopath for that, I know), so I shove a slice in his face and lick the cream off his nose and we jump into the ocean fully dressed, splashing and diving under until our eyes sting, piggy backs in the water and floating in sea salt with nowhere to be and everywhere to go. We stay in seclusion for many nights, fall headfirst into escapism and we thrive here, in our own little world, giddy about starting our own little family.

Obviously the reality and the fantasy don’t match. I was naive, lolz. The expectations, the organisation and logistics, the dress, the catering, the pressures. The fantasy of eloping visits me more now.

I have my control issues and I’m self-aware enough to know I can be pigheaded about it sometimes. I like what I like, and I’m not good with critique on my style. Turns out that when it comes to being the bride you either have to a. block out all the noise, or b. have thick skin. Great news, turns out I have c. neither! So my bottom lip wobbled a bit as the opinions flooded in on my wedding dress ideas - not ‘bridal’ enough, not quality enough, not good enough. I felt like I was losing my identity in the process of wedding planning, like I was grasping onto the steering wheel of control but losing my grip and swerving from left to right, incapable of steering the ship to everyone’s satisfaction.

In defeat I tried new dresses on and I battled with the expectation to be glamourous when internally, I feel androgynous af. I started to fantasize about getting a buzz cut. Just shaving all of my hair off, buying a white tracksuit, writing ‘bride’ on the back and wearing that. I laughed as I imagined showing up in a bin bag and a bald head, an act of protest against the expectations of what it means to be female, to look female, to be a bride.

My urges of defiance are in part some subconscious resistance to the inevitability of the mourning process for the monogamous relationship I have with myself. I love being alone, it charges me, inspires me, soothes me. I can’t lose that and keep my sanity. Marriage is a combination of three things that make it a success, or so I hear - communication, commitment and compromise. I’m ready for that, but I don’t want to lose me as a consequence of gaining him. 

It’s scary, knowing I’m going to lose the option to be selfish. I’ve only recently admitted to myself that I’m definitely a bit of a commitment-phobe. I want to reserve the right to jet off to New York with 12 hours notice, to shave my hair off and move to Glasgow, to impulsively decide to spend the day in bed eating edibles, binge watching American Horror Story and occasionally journalling and crying inbetween, just because the mood strikes. I cling to my right to choose and control my own narrative stubbornly, *sometimes* to a fault. But I need control. Maybe that’s my fourth ‘C’ in the secrets to a successful marriage - I need to maintain control as an individual, and I’m terrified I’ll lose it. Maybe he feels the same.

While I’m not into weddings, I’m very into marriage. I want to watch his hair go grey, I want us to have a million belly-laughs, I want us to climb trees until our limbs are too frail and I want us to spend at least a thousand more nights looking up at the night sky and playing the game of guessing which planet is which. Mars, Pluto, Venus, oh no, you’re wrong - trust me, you are wrong - that is Sirius and look, Orion’s Belt looks amazing tonight! I say we need to watch Men in Black together, that I want us to get a cat and call it Orion.

I want to travel with him, to climb mountains in north Africa and attempt to speak Arabic to the locals and fail and laugh it off and try again. I want us to cook together, Korean, Egyptian, Caribbean, flour fights in the kitchen and pancakes in bed. I want us to be unafraid of having healthy arguments that help us grow not only together, but as individuals. I want us to create little children who will become the loves of our lives and run around playing with Orion and they’ll definitely exhaust me until I cry and that’s okay, I’m ready for that, because part of creating a family of your own is knowing that it is going to be very, very hard sometimes.

I want us to remember that we chose this, we chose each other. I want us to remember why we fell in love in the first place every single day. I want us to live in the knowledge that we improve each other's lives, but we don’t need each other to survive. We chose to build a life together, I chose him and he chose me. We can walk away at any time, but we choose this. A healthy dynamic is found in knowing we won’t die without each other. I want him to continue to read to me like he does now - fairy tales of talking tigers in India, poems about witches and stories about Bob Marley and the CIA. I hope he vows to continue to enlighten me with wisdom and joyful tales until death do us part. In return, I vow to try and be less of a nutcase.

So yeah, I’m pretty anti-weddings when I think of the expense, the performative anxiety and the pressures of having to conform to a conventional sense of femininity. Weddings? Na. Marriage? Yes. I do, I do, I do.

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